Indian Racing League: With city-based teams in the fray, IRL Season 3 hopes to build motorsport ecosystem à la IPL

A motorsport event like Formula One puts to test the driver, team and the efficiency of the vehicle that has been curated and tweaked for maximum output.

But what if the machines being used were the same across the grid, down to the angle of the front wing? It is then that the competition becomes a battle purely driven by talent, communication and teamwork.

Drawing from the concept of global single-make championships like Formula 3 is the Indian Racing League (IRL), which fields the same cars for all 12 drivers.

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“According to the FIA rules and regulations, we can’t really have different engines or modifications. All the cars are owned by the league,” Akhilesh Reddy, co-founder of Racing Promotions Private Limited (RPPL), told  Sportstar ahead of IRL’s third season.

“Coming to making the car faster, it depends on the engineers who were allotted to the teams and how good the driver-engineer interaction is. That’s what is different from the Formula One and the feeder series. The main agenda of the feeder series is to identify the talent in the drivers.”

Once limited to hosting only global events, the IRL is India’s solitary four-wheel racing league and the world’s first gender-neutral racing championship series with six women competing in the 24-driver lineup.

Each of the six IRL teams will feature four drivers – two Indian drivers and two international drivers, including one woman – who are drafted by the league and then picked by teams.

“We do it in a draw format where, for every driver for every round, the owners will pick the draw number and get the chance to choose their first driver, followed by the second, and so on,” said Akhilesh.

While this format is new and will take some time to generate revenue, Akhilesh and RPPL are realistic in their growth expectations, especially considering the limited eyeballs the sport attracts in India.

“The disadvantage that motorsport has in India is that we need to create an ecosystem and awareness at the same time, unlike the ecosystem for cricket. Irrespective of the sport, it takes some time to have sustainable growth, and we have set a target of five to six years. We should be in a sustainable model by 2027 or 2028,” Akhilesh said.

It is with these goals in mind that the IRL ventured into the idea of having six teams named after Indian cities, which according to Akhilesh, is an attempt to get non-motorsport fans onboard.

“Motorsport is not as famous as cricket and there are not too many fans leaning towards it. I wouldn’t say that 100 per cent of the people who will come to watch the race would be motorsport fans, but at least 25 or 30 per cent people would.”

With the first two of five rounds scheduled in Chennai and the third in Coimbatore, RPPL has its task cut out.

“Chennai has a history of motorsport and the tracks available are only there. But we are working towards street circuits and hopefully, we might be present in another two or three more states next year,” said Akhilesh.

As the season hits the ground running at the Madras International Circuit (MIC) for its opening round, the IRL will hope to improve on its previous seasons and navigate the challenging path towards becoming a prominent fixture in the country’s mainstream sports landscape.